Oakland city officials reject motion for receivership

OPD officers arrest a protester during the Occupy Oakland encampment eviction on October 25, 2011. OPD's actions during this and other Occupy-related protests have been criticized by the independent monitor. Photo by Brittany Schell.

In a federal court document filed Thursday, city officials rejected a motion by local attorneys for a federal takeover of the Oakland Police Department, pushing instead for the creation of two new positions that would monitor the department’s progress in enacting the last 10 of 51 reforms ordered by a federal judge in 2003.

The people in these two new positions—a compliance director and assistant chief of constitutional policing—would focus solely on department compliance with the tasks mandated in the 2003 Negotiated Settlement Agreement, according to the report filed by City Attorney Barbara Parker.This oversight would lead to “swift and sustained reform” in a way that an appointed federal receiver could not, the report stated.

The city’s proposition is an answer to attorneys John Burris and Jim Chanin’s motion last month to ask Federal District Judge Thelton Henderson to place the OPD under federal receivership. A hearing is scheduled for December 13, when Henderson will decide the fate of the department.

The OPD’s problems stem from the 2003 settlement in the wake of the “Riders” trial, in which a group of four veteran Oakland officers, who called themselves the Riders, were accused of planting evidence, making false police reports and beating suspects. The result was a $10 million settlement paid by the city to 119 plaintiffs—mostly young men with a criminal record, usually drug related. Part of the settlement also included a Negotiated Settlement Agreement (NSA), under which the department promised to make more than four dozen reforms to prevent future abuses.